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An anonymous reader writes "Liberals may owe their political outlook partly to their genetic make-up, according to new research from the University of California, San Diego, and Harvard University. Ideology is affected not just by social factors, but also by a dopamine receptor gene called DRD4. The study's authors say this is the first research to identify a specific gene that predisposes people to certain political views."

Maybe they'll use it to create a gene therapy to cure conservatism instead?

Seriously, it's good to have both sides of the coin, because BOTH sides have made a lot of mistakes. Liberals move us forward to try new things, and keep us from falling into some of the traps conservatives seem to favor, and have a flexible/adaptable position. Conservatives keep us from moving to fast, or doing too much of the leap-before-you look, and drop-old-start-new plan before the old plan is done, senselessness that you can see with liberals.

Actually, I remember reading (forgot the name of the specific book) that being liberal or conservative has roots in our evolutionary history. So if this news is absolutely true, it would lend credit to that said theory.
As far as a personal opinion, I would think so, being either is influence not just by nurture but by nature as well(if not more nature then nurture).

I went straight to the source and made my decision from there. It was obvious to me, even as a teenager that the Jesus in the Bible I was forced to read for 18 years at Sunday school was not the same guy that they were talking about in church or politics. The Jesus in the bible was a cool guy who's message was about love. The Jesus everyone else was taking about was a hateful prick.

I've often said it's unfortunate that you met human beings who evidentally you don't like and were basically jerks to you. But you shouldn't extrapolate that out to other people's experiences.

I grew up in a Methodist church and NEVER felt anything I read was "out of bounds" or was something someone didn't want to hear about. That's basically what makes people uncomfortable - when they are excluded or told certain thoughts must not be thought.

And also Hell and the punishment for sin and God's love in sending Jesus.

Jesus was not a "social" figure, nor a "political" figure. Jesus did not come for that, and didn't claim to be that. He was not a "cool" guy. In fact, most people eventually wanted to kill him and release a murderer instead. He offended a lot of people by telling them they were sinning. He made people uncomfortable. He claimed to be a lot of things, He preached some pretty hard messages.

he was probably several men at the same time. Where later they were compiled into a single man by borrowing from Osiris some qualities.
But at the end this is all speculations, as long as there is no evidence suggesting he did exist, objectively speaking he did not.
If we want to think what might have been, that's different and not supported by evidence.

It's a nice idea to think that conservatives and liberals are flip sides of the coin, and we need both. Yadda yadda. But it just doesn't work out that way. Conservatives are on the wrong side of history. Consider Afghanistan for instance. There are liberals there, and there are conservatives there. Do they really need those conservatives holding them back? What good does it do them? From our modern perspective we can see just how wrong-headed they are. But left and right over there is the same thing as left and right over here, just centered around a different origin. There's no reason to believe our conservatives are any better than theirs, and in the future we'll look back and see just how wrong-headed they are today. The people calling for the persecution of homosexuals and drug users and mexicans today are no different from the people calling for the persecution of women, blacks, and catholics 100 years ago.

Now of course liberals aren't perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. But at least liberals make new mistakes, instead of glorifying the same old mistakes. At least liberals look to a future where everyone is better off instead of conservatives who simply try to maintain a power structure that is favorable to them alone.

Conservatives by definition "conserve", they try to keep things the same. That is why "conservatives" in Afghanistan are so different from "conservatives" in America, the status quo in the two places is different, so "keeping things the same" or "going back to the old ways" means very different things, so conservative Afghans are very different from conservative Americans.

You are right that throughout history "conservatives" have usually opposed positive change - they oppose change by definition. By that same definition, "conservatives" almost always oppose negative change as well. Conservatives opposed communism, Nazism, eugenics, and a lot of other things that they were right to oppose.

Hitler was a liberal? Yeah, he did confiscate guns, but nothing characterizes Nazism better than extreme nationalism, a conservative trait.

eugenics

Eugenics was supported by both sides. Progressives who thought they could make humanity better, and conservatives who wanted to use genetics to enforce the class structure. Notice how it was always the lower classes who got sterilized.

Conservatives opposed Communism? In general, yes, although that also meant supporting some pretty unsavory regimes. One could argue that supporting the Tsarist regime or the Chinese government of Chiang Kai-Shek radicalized the opposition, so they were forced to the extreme.

Conservatives certainly did support National Socialism. Hitler was given power (as Chancellor) by right-wing politicians who thought they could control him. One reason for his rise to power was Goering's association with the industrialists, who tend to be conservative. Outside Germany, many conservatives supported Hitler's rule, even if they deplored some aspects.

On the whole, the world has been becoming a better place for a long time. The role of conservatives in this has been to generally slow down change, which on the good side has often meant restricting changes to ones people were confident would be good.

First, I'm going to disagree with this statement due to the unspoken premises which evidently lead to it being made.

Your view of 'Conservative' appears to be quite myopic and castigating, cast along a specific political divide, not a first-belief like 'liberalism' or 'conservativism'. What is 'conservative' in your mind? Was it a conservative mindset that kept us out of WWII until Pearl Harbor, or was it a liberal one? Was it a liberal or conservative mindset that led to the British colonizing the world?

No, I presume that we learn things by trying, and it's better to know than not know. If we make a mistake, the liberals will be the first to suggest change, while the conservatives will want things to stay the same.

And yet here we are with arguably the most liberal president and congress ever...

I'm arguing. Obama isn't very liberal, he's a conservative Democrat. Why am I arguing this, for the very reasons you state in your post. His actions are not very liberal in that he's basically acting like the conservatives before him. The only liberal thing he has done, so far, is the healthcare crap, which is more like welfare for Insurance companies than any actual liberal proposal.

I am a liberal (according to the silly politics test I'm further left than Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, though also more libertarian than Ron Paul), and Obama just looks like a slightly lesser conservative than Bush, Bush, or Reagan. Same with Clinton, to be honest. I don't think we've had a fully liberal president in the US since FDR.

Do you actually think anybody with a liberal ideology actually is smarter, better, and less likely to repeat their mistakes?

Oh, no not at all. I didn't mean to say that all liberals are smarter than all conservatives, or that any specific liberal is smarter than any specific conservative. These are admittedly generalizations, frequently wrong but with an element of truth.

Consider the debate between science and religion. Both claim to be ways of finding truth. Now I've met some pretty stupid scientists and some really smart priests. But science on the whole has a much better track record for finding facts and improving the lives of people than religion does.

And yet here we are with arguably the most liberal president and congress ever.

You could argue that, but you'd be wrong. Consider the two biggest things this president has done, passed health care reform, and stimulus spending. His health care plan is more conservative than Nixons, so he's certainly no liberal there. His stimulus policies were just a continuation of Bush's, so that doesn't sound too liberal either.

Guantanamo is still open, the Iraq war is still ongoing, and most of the Patriot act is still in place or is being expanded. The poor will probably become slightly less poor, the middle class will become poor, and the really rich will stay really rich and in power.

And all these things are happening because of insufficient liberalism on the part of our government. Conservatives created the fiction that Guantanamo was outside of US jurisdiction. Conservatives lied their way into the Iraq war. Conservatives wrote the Patriot act (though the Democrats (none of them liberals) who voted for it are not without blame). And the gap between the rich and poor has gotten ever wider in the last 30 years of Conservative rule.

These policies continue because our government can in no way be described as liberal.

Now of course conservatives aren't perfect. But at least they usually aren't willing to force their untested ideologically-based and ridiculously expensive systems on people.

War on Drugs? Don't Ask Don't Tell? The War in Iraq? Border fences? Abstinence only education?

For most traits, the effects of individual genes are too
small to stand out against the combined influence of
all other genes and environmental factors. Thus, our
p-value of 0.02 on a sample of 2,000 individuals
should be treated cautiously. The expectation in
genetics is that only repeated efforts to replicate
associations on independent samples by several research
teams will verify initial findings like these.
Thus, perhaps the most valuable contribution of this
study is not to declare that ‘‘a gene was found’’ for
anything, but rather, to provide the first evidence for
a possible gene-environment interaction for political
ideology.

Contrast this with TFA:

The study's authors say this is the first research to identify a specific gene that predisposes people to certain political views.

Should be easier to tie in dopamine receptor genes to one or more of those traits:

1. Care for others, protecting them from harm. (He also referred to this dimension as Harm.)
2. Fairness, Justice, treating others equally.
3. Loyalty to your group, family, nation. (He also referred to this dimension as Ingroup.)
4. Respect for tradition and legitimate authority. (He also referred to this dimension as Authority.)
5. Purity, avoiding disgusting things, foods, actions.

Strange about the introvert vs. extrovert thing... I would have surmised just the opposite... being an introverted engineer liberal type myself. And conservatives are the ones that typically go out to church to collect as a community.

I used to think that I was introverted myself. I am also very liberal. I have noticed however that I am attracted to social interactions. I just want to be with people that are like me and that I'm comfortable with.
As for conservatives going to church and the like, that is just so they can feel better about themselves. It's not the community they seek, it's the feeling better than the liberal nut jobs like me.

Hrm. Since "conservatives" in the U.S. rung up 80% of the National Debt, and it was the "liberal" President in the 90's that balanced the budget and is the only President in recent memory to actually try and pay the Debt down... your claim doesn't seem to have much basis in fact. I mean, Reagan tripled the debt, Bush Sr nearly doubled it, and Bush Jr doubled it again.

I am liberal and have been debt free for over ten years. I am very responsible with money, as are my liberal parents, and virtually every liberal friend and relative I know. I know anecdotal evidecne isn't proof, but it sure seems to discount your blanekt characterization of liberals.

That just means that Obama sucks. He rode a wave of hope and change into the white house and then sold us out and pandered to the republicans. He is a failure. If it wasn't for Reagan and Bush II, Obama would be the worst president of my lifetime.

I disagree. Stimulus spending is considered by economists to be essential in pulling out of recessions. Putting the war spending IN the budget, instead of dishonestly pushing through money during the year is far better than the previous administrations policy. Healthcare is something that needs to be addressed, and while I think the bill sucks, at least it does SOMETHING.

Frankly, I can't think of anything more fiscally irresponsible than going to war without raising taxes (indeed, while LOWERING taxes).

While I wish that both sides were more fiscally conservative, I cannot support the idea that Obama is worse than Bush as far as spending goes.

The whole stimulus thing is a "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" proposition.

If you're a typical high school graduate, deficit spending in a downturn seems like a bad idea. If you're a college graduate (in something other than economics), it seems like a good idea. If you've got an Economics degree, you're not sure.

Here's the thing - all of so-called Keynesian economics revolves around an idea called "The Paradox of Thrift" - an error of composition that says while it may be good for an individual to save in hard times, if everyone does it, the aggregate demand curve shifts leftward and you sink ever deeper into a depression. "Stimulus" spending is a measure to thwart this.

If we accept all of this so far, there are still problems - a high marginal propensity to consume, like the American people have, means that the effect was minimal, i.e., the money would have been spent anyway. Will the money be spent in an economically stimulating way, or will it merely clean out the wish list of the politicians in power? Does the spending create perverse incentives? Does the marginal cost of borrowing outweigh the stimulus as compared to the marginal propensity to consume?

Like I said, these are all open questions IF YOU ACCEPT THE PARADOX OF THRIFT. But the Paradox of Thrift relies on a situation where people are literally, and not figuratively, sticking their money in mattresses. At least, they are neither consuming nor investing - they are holding cash. If you stick in a savings account at the bank - no POT. If you buy gold - no POT. If you invest in your 401k - no POT. This is all because the money is continuing to circulate as capital formation.

You can't fault Keynes for this - in his time, people really, literally, stuck money in their mattresses. This is just one of those things we continue to believe academically because it is INCREDIBLY politically expedient, just like ALL tax cuts pay for themselves (some might, under certain circumstances, at certain times). As an economist, I can stipulate conditions under which stimulus spending might work - but those conditions are not the conditions of the 21st century Western world.

And don't get me started about health care. The problem with health care is insurance, and the bill makes the provision of health care more reliant on insurance. It does something - it makes things far worse. The whole problem is that American refuse to save. Insuring certainties is a sure road to financial ruin - you're not going to outguess the actuaries.

If you're a typical high school graduate, deficit spending in a downturn seems like a bad idea. If you're a college graduate (in something other than economics), it seems like a good idea. If you've got an Economics degree, you're not sure.

What too many people forget is that for Keynesian economics to work, in times of prosperity you must run surpluses, or at the very least, reduce deficit spending to the point where the growth of the economy shrinks your debt ratio. Critics point to the last 30 years as evidence against Keynesian economics, either forgetting or not realizing that in the last 30 years, with the exception of the eight year span of the Clinton administration, our government hasn't actually been practicing it.

Shrug. I think stimulus spending is a valid part of a response to an economic downturn, especially in the current situation, where the Fed had kept rates so low for so long (fueling the inevitable crash) that when the crash came, their power to adjust rates to stimulate lending was largely blunted.

Likewise, tax rates are exceptionally low right now (lower than Reagan!), so cutting taxes (especially taxes on the wealthy) isn't likely to have much effect either.

Complaining about the bank bailout is pretty foolish at this point, considering it's on pace to make money. The only thing that irritated me about it is that the government loaned the idiots money, instead of just buying them outright for a fraction of the cost (in early 2008 we gave tens of billions to banks whose value on the market was depressed to less than 10 billion!)

Sure the conservatives would have screamed "SOCIALISM!" but that's the perfect way to deal with "too big to fail." Buy it up, and then d

"don't spend more than you have" isn't a conservative only view. I'm so sick of the stereotypes. Nearly everyday here in MN we are reminded of how false that is when we hear more about Denny Hecker, a conservative, and his bankruptcy and fraud issues. Liberals are just as likely to live within their means as anyone else. And conservatives are just as likely to do the opposite.

people with the novelty-seeking gene variant would be more interested in learning about their friends' points of view. As a consequence, people with this genetic predisposition who have a greater-than-average number of friends would be exposed to a wider variety of social norms and lifestyles, which might make them more liberal than average

So, according to the hypothesis, liberals seek out novelty and challenges, have more friends, and gain more life experience. Those are generally acknowledged as positive traits - maybe the true genetic flaw is in those wh

Viagra's dirty little secrets are 1) it's a performance enhancing drug. It gives you control over the whole damned experience, and 2) old guys need it because old women are fugly. If I'm with Amy or someone her age, I don't need it at all. I do with a woman my own age.

BTW, sex is like everything else -- the more you do it the better you get.

However, viagra's not exactly on topic; it doesn't affect dopamine levels, although orgasm does. I wonder if the researchers took into account how much sex the test subjects got? I suspect that liberals get more than conservatives, because liberals are more social than conservatives.

Now "they" will be able to make a drug to counter-act the receptor and cure liberalness. Just what we need, a pharmacated electorate.

Ever heard of medicine that will numb your feelings? That cure that bleeding heart, so to speak? They're way ahead of you...

Seriously, though: Prozac and the like are a life-saver for some people, while being too liberally prescribed to other people.

And another point: Once one is thoroughly indoctrinated in the liberal/socialist or whatever morals, one doesn't need to feel liberal feelings to do the right thing. One can think liberal thoughts without feeling.

I was once prescribed such meds. While the SSRI:s took away my feelings, I didn't feel emotionally about anything, I could still think the "liberal" thoughts I had learned to feel and think during my life. The SSRI:s also took away my fear and care for consequences (maybe they weren't a perfect fit for me?), so I'd often go into 7-11 to steal stacks of ready made meals that I distributed to homeless drug addicts.

In hindsight, that wasn't very clever and I'm glad I didn't get into trouble.

The SSRI:s also took away my fear and care for consequences (maybe they weren't a perfect fit for me?), so I'd often go into 7-11 to steal stacks of ready made meals that I distributed to homeless drug addicts.

The funny thing is that if those homeless were addicted to the same SSRI:s that made you steal it would create a positive-feedback system...

Seriously, maybe your "liberal" thoughts weren't too precise to begin with. Perhaps the solution to homelessness caused by drug addiction should be to cure the addiction instead of feeding the homeless.

To cure the addiction, the "conservative" way would be to punish drug addicts enough that no one would dare to try to use drugs. The "scientific" way would be to find what happens inside the brain that causes some people to become addicted to drugs.

The problem with the word "liberal" is that it can be used for any position in the political spectrum.

To some people, a "liberal" is someone who believes the government should take care of people who have been left behind someway in the economic process, the unemployed, the homeless, those who are at a disadvantage in some way. Under that point of view, Cuba should be considered one of the most "liberal" regimes in the world.

To other people, a "liberal" is someone who believes in liberty, in letting everyone do their own thing, in a minimalist government.

To some people, a "liberal" is someone who believes the government should take care of people who have been left behind someway in the economic process, the unemployed, the homeless, those who are at a disadvantage in some way. Under that point of view, Cuba should be considered one of the most "liberal" regimes in the world.

Sorry, but no, communism is NOT being more of a democrat than the democrats. Communist politics simply do not fit on this spectrum.

To some people, a "liberal" is someone who believes the government should take care of people who have been left behind someway in the economic process, the unemployed, the homeless, those who are at a disadvantage in some way. Under that point of view, Cuba should be considered one of the most "liberal" regimes in the world.

Ironically, the welfare state (which concept I believe subsumes what you've described as what some people call "liberal") was originally a conservative concept, founded on the idea that if people needn't be concerned about risk (e.g. to their health) they will be able to do more work.

Excellent point. Polls shows that most americans are "liberal" when it comes to social ideas (like allowing gays to marry), but "conservative" when it comes to political ideas (government is best when it is small). At present neither the Democrats nor the Republicans represent that view. Neither do simple labels.

For myself: I just want people to stay out of my damn wallet.

I sweat & labor to earn the wealth, and somebody takes it away for their OWN enrichment. I'm beginning to understand how an indentured servant must have felt (he worked but the wealth went to the landlord). - Yes I'm sorry you ran into a wall and broke your hip, but you've had a job for ~30 years. You have money and should pay the bill yourself out of your personal wages/savings - just like I pay my own bills out of my own account. AFTER you run out of money I'll gladly help you (via welfare, medicare) but nor prior to that.

A safety net should be exactly that - a net. Not an entitlement given to people who are still on the "highwire" of life and don't need it.

Which is perfect if life is fair and people have control over what happens to them.

unfortunately it tends not to be.Shit quite often happens to people effectively independent of their own actions.Some drunk swerves onto the sidewalk and hits you or your home floods.That's not reasonably within your control.

If poverty wasn't a highly inheritable affliction then it would be fine.

unfortunately it tends to be.You have to be either extremely unlucky or extremely foolish or inept to be born to rich parents and th

Well first, to take your example of Amtrak, whether it worked and why it worked or didn't work is still open to interpretation. I notice you limited your "results" to Amtrak's overall balance sheet. You haven't taken into account the benefit Amtrak brought to the people who do take trains, nor the alleviation of car traffic brought to congested cities. There's also the fact that some routes are more heavily trafficked than others, and Amtrak could be said to be very successful if you only looked at those routes. So in some ways, I'd say that Amtrak is a successful program.

But also your criticism of "not enough customers" doesn't begin to address the question of "why weren't there enough customers?" There are tons of socioeconomic issues involving culture, infrastructure development, and civic design that lead to a situation where taking a train is undesirable or infeasible-- but most of those things can be changed.

In reality, most people decide first whether they like/dislike public transportation on emotional grounds, and then find arguments that support their position.

I'm a libertarian but I have to say, there's a fair argument to be made that Amtrack is having to compete against a heavily subsidized road program. It's definitely not a level playing field but when the government is involved, what is?

This is a value proposition on which rationality has nothing to say, and furthermore on which there is, in practice, no consensus. Its a controversial value proposition in the case of "companies" generally, and its a particularly controversial value proposition in the case of companies established by the government for the purpose of acheiving government policy goals.

No, they don't do the exact-same job. I can't reasonably take a taxi from Boston to Washington DC, and taking that trip on a train vs a bus is a pretty different experience in terms of reliability, comfort, and throughput.

Yeah I've looked at the numbers for my area (Baltimore). The number of Amtrak riders is 0.1% of the total number of daily commuters

Yeah, but you're talking about commuters in Baltimore. What are you going to do when the Amtrak train lets you out in Penn Station, take the light rail? The problem isn't the train, the problem is that you live in fricken Baltimore.

I agree with this point, but you'll notice those routes never get shutdown.

>>>Most political differences are a result of disagreement of premises, not conclusions.

What do you mean? It seems like logic would work. You create a program (say Amtrak), look at the results (near-bankruptcy), and then decide whether or not it worked (it didn't unfortunately - not enough customers).

Case in point: Your premise is that the purpose of Amtrak was to make a profit. In fact, the purpose of Amtrak was to preserve valuable infrastructure that the private sector was no longer able to maintain due to heavily-subsidized air and road competition. In that regard it was mildly successful, in spite of funding problems, and has proven its worth many times (including the post-9/11 grounding and the Katrina evacuation, to name a few).

Re: Amtrak. Very little transit is self-sufficient, economically: mass-transit or personal. In the case for an airport, a city may spend many dollars building roads to and from an airport, provide security, and so-on. This money is rarely collected directly back from the airport via the airline tickets, but the city expects that the net economic benefit to itself will be best due to tourism, etc. Thus, in their own way, airports are subsidized.

Give a logical reasoning test to subjects and correlate with political affiliation.

Here's an interesting one. Alcohol ranks higher than cannabis on all measures of harm to both oneself and society at large. Logically, if the aim of drugs policy is as stated - to minimise the harm that drugs cause - then either both drugs should be treated the same (legal/illegal) or cannabis should be legal and alcohol illegal. That is the only logical result given the stated premise for drug control (a premise that appears to be accepted by the population at large). Conservatives are generally opposed to legalising cannabis. Liberals are generally supportive of legalising cannabis. Which is the more logical in this case?

Although liberal families' incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative-headed households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberal-headed household

The single biggest predictor of someone's altruism, Willett says, is religion. It increasingly correlates with conservative political affiliations because, as Brooks' book says, "the percentage of self-described Democrats who say they have 'no religion' has more than quadrupled since the early 1970s." America is largely divided between religious givers and secular nongivers, and the former are disproportionately conservative. One demonstration that religion is a strong determinant of charitable behavior is that the least charitable cohort is a relatively small one -- secular conservatives.

How much more likely are they to give to non-religious charities (as in not the church they attend)? Most non-religious people don't go hang out somewhere on Sundays where there is a collection plate going around.

The gene in question does not "make someone liberal". It is a gene that promotes novelty seeking, and leads to many wide ranging friendships in adolescence, resulting in exposure to many points of view, and this predisposes one to be liberal as an adult (this is all in the TA).

Without the 'wide ranging friendships in adolescence' there is no effect. It is the life experience of being open to other points of view, the additional knowledge gained, that makes you more likely to be liberal.

For the conservatives here crowing nonsense about "curing liberalism", perhaps the fact that absence of this gene promotes the opposite - fewer friends and ignorance of other points of view - should make one be less enthused with this finding. Unless, of course "closed mindedness" is considered a conservative virtue.

It is the life experience of being open to other points of view, the additional knowledge gained, that makes you more likely to be liberal.

I guess it depends on your definition of liberal. Most self-proclaimed liberals I know are not very open to other views. The open-mindedness they are interested in is MY open mindedness to THEIR ideas.

I also don't like the comment about 'curing liberalism'. I admit that's the first thing I thought, too, and I'm sure it was meant in jest, but this recent trend of linking everything to a gene - the "gay" gene, the "smart" gene, the "religious" gene, and now the "liberal" gene. Every time I hear a new one, I wonder how long before someone will use it to justify some kind of "cleansing".

Researchers have found a gene which, when lacking in humans, leads them to be far more likely to fall into conservatism.

People without the novelty-seeking gene variant would be less interested in learning about their friends' points of view. As a consequence, people with this genetic predisposition may be more conservative than average.

from the let-the-flame-war-begin dept.sciencepoliticsScrameustache writes "Conservatives may owe their political outlook to their genetic make-up, according to new research from the University of California, San Diego, and Harvard University. Ideology is affected not just by social factors, but also by a dopamine receptor gene called DRD4. Lead researcher James H. Fowler and his colleagues hypothesized that people with the novelty-avoiding gene variant would be less interested in learning about other points of view."

A broken dopamine receptor D4 (the same gene TFA is about) also has a tendency to make one less vulnerable to addiction, and especially stress addiction. For an example of how painful a runaway stress-driven dopamine feedback loop [maetl.net] can be, look no further than Dilbert.

"People with stronger party affiliation, conservative political views, and greater interest in politics proved more likely to click on articles with opposing views, according to the Ohio State study. 'It appears that people with these characteristics are more confident in their views and so they’re more inclined to at least take a quick look at the counterarguments,' Knobloch-Westerwick noted. However, Knobloch-Westerwick added that her latest study was not designed to assess reader motives, and that she hopes to more carefully study the issue in the future. The Brigham Young University survey found that journalists also tended to read liberal blogs — perhaps a reflection of journalists' political beliefs, although even conservatives said liberal blogs were often better-written, Davis pointed out. Among the political blog readers, a similar trend emerged in which 'liberals read almost exclusively liberal blogs, but conservatives tend to read both,' Davis said." (emphasis added).

I'm sorry, but if we were all going to stop caring about civil liberties and human rights the first time we ran into an asshole, we'd have stopped being liberals the first time we met a conservative. What I find far more likely from your "age or experience" qualification is that some liberals get a degree of success in life, or get old enough to have accumulated some wealth, and they begin covering their own asses. This is alternately called human nature or selling out, depending on whether you're the one d

George Bush was no more conservative than Obama is. Stop thinking in terms of Donkeys and Elephants. Think more government and less government.

Expand your political spectrum a bit to actually include liberty. Nothing that George Bush did, with the exception of striking back at the people that attacked us on 9/11, had anything to do with liberty and less government.

George Bush was no more conservative than Obama is. Stop thinking in terms of Donkeys and Elephants. Think more government and less government.

Expand your political spectrum a bit to actually include liberty. Nothing that George Bush did, with the exception of striking back at the people that attacked us on 9/11, had anything to do with liberty and less government.

You are right to identify Obama as a conservative, he is moderate conservative, well to the right in many areas compared with, say, Richard Nixon. His health care reform plan is very similar to Mitt Romney's for example, and much more conservative than Nixon's plan (not enacted due to the collapse of his presidency). In the Eisenhower era he might well have been a Republican. (Which puts paid to the utterly-disconnected-from-reality ranting about him being a "socialist" much less a Marxist).

Bush was/is however far more right wing than Obama. Being right-wing is not the same thing as being conservative. The right wing radicalism of the "Tea Party" (seeking to remove constitutional amendments, or else suspend their effect?) is not conservative at all.

I have friends that self-identify from socialist to religiously conservative to libertarian. I even have openly gay friends. I do not attend church. I voted for Bush and refer to myself as conservative. I am also getting a MA in Political Science. Not every conservative is a close-minded, uneducated religious fanatic. There are many of us out there who have examined both ideologies and have found that the conservative camp is closest to our beliefs. We feel that our money is our money, and-except for what the government needs to provide ESSENTIAL functions of a government, ie defense, infrastructure, and administration- should be left with us to spend as we see fit. No redistribution of wealth, up or down. Everyone should pay their fair share, the poor, the rich, and those in between. We are out there, we are slowly getting our voices heard, and as much as the Tea Partiers and the Glenn Becks and the Rush Limbaughs would like to subvert our message and supplant it with fanatics, we will get our shot. Please, do not lump all conservatives together. Many of us are very open minded and can think for ourselves.

Wow. First, I'm impressed that you make enough money to lose 40% to taxes. I've never known anyone to pay more than about 25% of their income in federal taxes (they made well over $500,000/yr). You probably have state taxes. MD was pretty rough at ~5-6% of actual gross income. Cali might be the worst - it's close to 8% (top bracket is 11% iirc).

Note: When I lived in CA a decade ago - before the Bush tax cuts - My wife and I made $120k+/- and had no deductions (renters, no kids). We paid 10% federal and 5-6% state on our gross income.

So you've got 25% fed, 8% state, and 7.5% FICA (I'm assuming you count that as a tax) - but that doesn't jive, 'cause once you hit $80-100k, FICA drops to just medicare which is only 1.5%. What else is getting taken out?

Here's what I don't understand. You asked for:

In this world I want something back that affects me directly and personally, i.e. a retirement plan that is immune from market manipulation, health care even when I'm unemployed, etc.

Well, the 7.5% you pay (and the 7.5% your employer pays) for FICA goes to the retirement plan that is immune from market manipulation known as Social Security. You also seem to want health care even when you're unemployed, and that's called medicaid. The check you get when you're unemployed? That's part of FUTA (and SUTA) which is a tax paid by your employer.

Before those taxes, nobody footed the bill. The rich and powerful didn't give a shot about the little guy. You were at the mercy of local charities, and people died of malnutrition and illnesses which were easily curable.

What bugs me is people who think they pay too much, but use an inordinate amount of taxpayer resources. People with children: I'm looking at you. Every child that gets sent to a public school costs about $10,000 a year. Attend an in-state college? That counts, too. I know very few people who actually pay more than $20,000 in taxes, but a lot of people who have 2 or more kids. And to top it off, for each kid you have, you actually get a tax *reduction*. One of my employees makes $50k, has two kids (not in school yet), and pays essentially zero federal and state income taxes. But I digress...

I seem to recall hearing of a certain young republican who went to an Ivy League school and partied through his undergraduate on his father's dime (and reputation). He pulled pretty lackluster grades, really nothing to be proud of at all considering he wasn't working at the time and had nothing else that he needed to do beyond school. He then went to another Ivy League school afterwards for an MBA, also on his father's dime and reputation. He was known for using drugs and alcohol during those times as well, and didn't get particularly good grades as an MBA student either.

He then attempted to run a few businesses, with some assistance from his dad at getting in to those businesses. Most of those, he ran into the ground (including a petroleum company in a petroleum-rich state when petroleum was only continuing to gain in value).

So what ever happened to this young republican? He decided to follow his dad into politics. There he also couldn't get far without his dad's help; eventually being appointed president of the united states by some of his dad's close friends.

I remember back in the late '90s when Ira Katznelson, an eminent political scientist at Columbia, came to deliver a guest lecture to an economic philosophy class I was taking. It was a great lecture, made more so by the fact that the class was only about ten or twelve students and we got got ask all kinds of questions and got a lot of great, provocative answers. Anyhow, Prof. Katznelson described a lunch he had with Irving Kristol back either during the first Bush administration. The talk turned to William Kristol, then Dan Quayle's chief of staff, and how he got his start in politics. Irving recalled how he talked to his friend Harvey Mansfield at Harvard, who secured William a place there as both an undergrad and graduate student; how he talked to Pat Moynihan, then Nixon's domestic policy adviser, and got William an internship at The White House; how he talked to friends at the RNC and secured a job for William after he got his Harvard Ph.D.; and how he arranged with still more friends for William to teach at UPenn and the Kennedy School of Government. With that, Prof. Katznelson recalled, he then asked Irving what he thought of affirmative action. "I oppose it", Irving replied. "It subverts meritocracy."

It's got nothing to do with ideology. Heck just look at the Kennedy's, or some of the other liberal New England political families.

The difference though is that the Kennedys are not hypocrites like the Bushs. The Kennedys readily acknowledge that their personal success is largely due to great wealth and powerful connections, in addition to any personal merits, and seek to assist those who are born without the silver spoon.

The privileged right pretend it is only their personal merits that cause them to succeed, and that it is a terrible thing to try helping those lacking a fortune. As Ann Richards said (about GHW Bush) "He was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple." This is infinitely more true of his thoroughly incompetent offspring GW Bush.

Yes. All rich people are rich because they worked hard and all poor people are poor because they did not. And yes, how much you earn is perfectly proportional to how much you contribute to society. This explains Wall Street, the best and brightest of your great nation, perfectly.

After all, it makes much more sense to let the country's infrastructure fall apart and the children of the working poor be left uneducated, than to pay taxes to invest in the country you live in. The tax money you save can be used to pay for a business class flight out of the country when it turns into shit. You can then retire and enjoy functioning infrastructure built with other people's tax money.

It really does make complete sense from an individual perspective. I guess progressivism fails because it assumes that people can actually care about anyone but themselves.

A young teenage girl was about to finish her first year of college. She considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat but her father was a rather staunch Republican.

One day she was challenging her father on his beliefs and his opposition to taxes and welfare programs. He stopped her and asked her how she was doing in school.

She answered that she had a 4.0 GPA but it was really tough. She had to study most of the time, and she seldom had time to go out and party. She didn't have time for a boyfriend and didn't really have many college friends because of spending so much time studying.

He asked, "How is your friend Mary?" She replied that Mary was barely getting by. She had a 2.0 GPA and studied harder than her, but couldn't study as much because she had to work for money. Between working and studying she never had time to go out and party. She didn't have time for a boyfriend and didn't really have many college friends because of spending all her time working to pay her tuition and books.

Dad then asked his daughter why she didn't help her friend out with her tuition and books, since her grandfather's inheritance had left her well off.